Saffron Walden Town weekly roundup: Baller league draft and déjà vu against the Wickers

 

The scoreboard made for good viewing on Saturday. Thanks to Simon Chambers for the photo

3-0 against Hackney Wick. That scoreline sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Four weeks after defeating the Wickers 3-0 at Catons Lane in the FA Vase Qualifying Round, Saffron Walden Town repeated the scoreline away from home against the same opposition to secure a massively impressive Essex Senior League victory.

We’ll get onto that in a minute.

 

The week started with the news that a current Bloods player, Kaleel Green, and a former Blood, Jean-Baptiste Fischer, had been included in the draft pool for Season 2 of the Baller League, spearheaded by YouTube sensation KSI. I don’t claim to be an expert in this field (in fact I have the words ‘Baller League’ muted on X), but it seems a pretty big deal to some online.

Part of me was worried that Kaleel would be drafted, given that the games are due to take place later this month when we have some pretty important games coming up, but he was left undrafted. JB meanwhile had been picked by N5 FC, spearheaded by Arsenal legends Jens Lehmann, Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg.

I don’t claim to be familiar with any other drafted players, but if their affiliation with Arsenal is anything to go by I predict a second place finish this year.

 

Anyway, enough about content creator-led competitions (to be honest the first half of the week had little by way of club news, given that we had no game on Tuesday, I’m just getting the word count up), let’s dive into our only game of the week.

Is it a good time to say I missed the trip to Witham?

As much as I enjoyed receiving goal updates during my time in Birmingham this weekend, part of me was worried about how I was going to complete this roundup – but I stumbled across fan-recorded highlights from a Hackney Wick fan on YouTube so this report is based on what I’ve seen from his video. Thanks to EssexWickers, link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz6nBIat7GI&t=306s

Eight minutes gone, Jordy Gent heads us into the lead from a Ryan Auger free kick. His second goal of the season, and his first since that winner at White Ensign a couple of weeks ago, got us off to a flying start.

Toheeb Elegushi then made it two as he picked up a loose ball inside the box before finishing nicely past the hosts’ goalkeeper.

Kaleel then latched onto a Sam Deering pass to fire into the roof of the net to send the away fans into dreamland and making me wish I was 120 miles south-east.

Half-time then, and I came across a video this morning of the Hackney Wick gaffer absolutely ripping into his players at the break after going in three goals behind. A player tried to argue their case but was quickly shut down. It made for glorious Sunday morning viewing. Link here: https://x.com/HackneyWickFC/status/1977321247907385725

To their credit, after being ripped apart by their manager (who made a triple change at the break), the hosts came out better in the second half and tested George Coton in goal a couple of times, but never really looked like getting back into the game and we held on for a win, and our first clean sheet in five games – the last time we played this side.

A low point from Saturday’s game seemed to come in the first half when Henry Mabassa was subbed off before the half hour mark. Given that I learned earlier in the week that Jack Clark had in fact suffered a pretty nasty ankle injury during last week's draw against Sporting Bengal, and Henry had only just returned from some time on the sidelines of his own, this is now a little concerning for the defence. I don’t know if Henry was actually forced off injured, maybe someone can confirm, but hopefully all is well there.

A great result regardless against a side who will probably push for playoffs this year (as the gaffer will probably strike fear into them), and we look forward to the FA Vase returning to Catons Lane on Saturday as we welcome in-form Step 6 side Brimsdown.  

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